


I'll be Dead Before the Day is Done

by Xyriath



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alchemy, Ed-level cursing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-14 13:45:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5746045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath/pseuds/Xyriath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sent to investigate a rash of disappearances along the Cretan-Amestrian border, Colonel Edward Elric and his team are quickly overwhelmed by an unknown group.  During their attempts to extract information from him and Kain Fuery, however, Ed discovers that the truth may be far more insidious than simple kidnappings—and meets an old friend along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Death Sounds Better

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to [Uchiha-Umeko](http://uchiha-umeko.tumblr.com/), who came up with the concept and outline of the story, and even did art for it!
> 
> Do be warned that this _is_ a hurt/comfort fic and contains very nasty torture—and the comfort half isn't finished yet. Be warned if you have a weak stomach!

A polearm, Ed thought bitterly, was no substitution for alchemy.

It had its purposes, yeah, and he was glad that the spear kept his attackers all at a distance. But even with his backup firearm, which he had _fired_ —fuck, he hated that thing—it wasn’t enough to keep away the Cretans swarming them, or even make a dent.

 _If I could just fucking clap my hands_ —

But that was gone.

A bullet whizzed past him, tearing a hole in the blue fabric of his uniform and leaving a burning streak of pain across his left shoulder. Shit. They got his good arm.

He rolled it, trying to ignore, but he could feel the slightly slower speed in its response as he swept the legs out from underneath one of his attackers, then shoved the blade into his leg, kicking away his gun and leaving him to roll around in agony.

Two more of his soldiers fell, gunned down like _animals_ , and he was fucking _furious._ They worked _under_ him, trusted him to _protect_ them, and now they were just—!

He heard a scream from behind him and whirled to see the last of the four collapse, blood spreading from a wound to the chest. No, no no no—Fuery, where was—

“Freeze!”

Ed whirled, lifting his gun, ready to blow someone’s… well, no, he’d try for a nonlethal shot if he could. But it wasn’t an option anyway.

“Freeze,” the Cretan man hissed in heavily accented Amestrian, the snarl on his face made even more pronounced by the scar curving from his lip to his temple. “Freeze, or I blow his brains out.”

Ed could run, he knew he could—he’s agile enough and the terrain wild enough that he could get away, but he’d have to leave Fuery behind, with a knife to his throat and a gun to his back.

He could see those dark eyes behind the glasses, urging him on, to go, to warn Mustang. Ed swallowed, the knife cutting deeper into Fuery’s neck, and watched the blood trickle down.

The spear dropped to the ground, clattering against the rocks. He lifted his hands above his head in surrender, wincing in pain as his shoulder started to throb.

They stepped over cautiously, but when he made no move to retaliate, they swarmed, yanking his hands roughly behind his back and binding them, twisting his shoulder painfully. One of them, eyes cold, walked up to him, gun in hand.

He swung the rifle with vicious force, and the butt sank into Eds stomach. Ed fell to his knees, pain shooting up through his flesh knee, vomiting onto the rocks.

Boots descended, and he fell, thankfully missing the pile of upchuck, if barely. He curled up and gasped as they continued to kick, bruising his ribs, his head, his back—

“ _Hold!_ ”

The word was Cretan, and he was briefly grateful that he had decided to pick up the language.

“ _These men know military secrets. We should find out what they know.”_

Ed groaned softly. Fucking wonderful. This was going to be the best trip ever.

“ _And—look at his hair. Gold. And his eyes. He will prove useful, whether or not he talks._ ”

Okay, _that_ couldn’t be any fucking good.

—

“Edward Elric. Colonel. FA-8518-2069.”

The whip cracked against Ed’s back again. He scoffed. He’d done worse things with Roy in the bedroom.

“Tell us who sent you. Tell us what they know.”

Ed worked up the saliva in his mouth, and the blood along with it, then spat it on his questioner’s clothing.

The whip cracked against his back yet again, and Ed debated moaning. But a look over at Fuery stopped him.

“You’re Amestrian Military. We can tell. If you give us the information we want, we’ll let you go.”

Ed couldn’t help it: he laughed. “Seriously? Fuckin’ seriously? C’mon, man, I just puked my _guts_ up and I have less shit in my mouth than—“

He let out a gasping, gargling, choking noise as the man punched him in the stomach again. Fuck—fuckfuckfuck—he couldn’t breathe—couldn’t—

Someone grabbed his automail leg and yanked, and he tried to recover his coherence, but the room was spinning and—

An explosion rocked through his already ringing ears.  He smelled smoke. They released him, and he could see something swing out of the corner of his eye.

If he could have made any noises besides strangled choking, he would have screamed. He had never broken a knee before, but he knew enough about anatomy and could feel enough to tell that it had just fucking _shattered._

He tried to stand, tried to get his one of his legs back underneath him to relieve the now agonizing pain in his shoulders, but his right leg collapsed the moment he tried to put the tiniest bit of pressure on it, and his left…

What was going on? he wondered fuzzily, and looked down.

His automail leg was gone, the remaining metal smoking right below his thigh.

Oh.

Another punch to his gut, the world spun with his pain in the center, and then went black.

—

“Kain Fuery. Chief Warrant Officer. AT-1639-2795.”

Kain’s voice was hoarse from the screams, and it was all he could do to keep it steady. But he had to. He _had_ to. After seeing what Ed had gone through, how he had kept quiet about their mission through it all, he could do this. Perhaps not with as much backtalk, but he could do it.

The pliers closed over another fingernail, his third. “ _Tell us._ ”

And it could have been so easy. So easy to open his mouth, tell them Mustang’s urgent orders, to take a small team with them to the Cretan border and discover who was behind the sudden rash of disappearances. Tell them that they had absolutely _no_ information beyond what Kain had transmitted in his last report. They hadn’t even known they were dealing with such a large group, so of course they had been surprised.

But, Kain reminded himself, the reports were daily. They had been missing for two—no, three days. Four? He wasn’t sure. Someone would be looking for them.

“Kain Fuery. Chief Warrant Officer. AT-1639-2795.”

They ripped. Kain screamed.

He could see Ed’s eyes flutter open in front of him, barely. He was just at the distance where it started to get fuzzy, but even though one of his eyes was swollen shut, he could just make out Ed’s exhausted expression.

His glasses were gone, of course—he was lucky that when they had shattered them with a punch to the face, the shards hadn’t gone into his eyes. But he could feel the blood streaming from the cuts still, and he was fairly sure that there was still glass in them, from the continuous, sharp pain.

Ed hadn’t screamed through any of it, not once. Backtalk, snarling, insults, but not a scream. If Ed, who had already been through so much, could do this, so could Kain.

They lifted a brick and slammed it onto his hand, grinding it, catching the nailbeds and everything else besides. Kain screamed again as he _felt_ the tiny bones in his finger snap. He couldn’t stop—it kept on, even after they lifted the brick, started their questions again, grabbed his shoulders and shook him and demanded answers.

He only managed to stop when one of their fists hit his jaw. A ring on their hand caught his cheek, opening a cut, but he barely noticed.

He stayed there, panting, in silence, every nerve in his body shrieking with pain.

“Start on the other again.”

They moved away and Kain felt the briefest moments of relief, but guilt followed hard on its heels as they grabbed Ed’s hair, yanking his head back.

Though Ed’s face was half-covered in blood, his eyes were bright and defiant.  They met Kain’s, and he could see the determination in them, the courage, and Kain couldn’t let him down.

One of them pressed a gun to Ed’s shoulder, and before either of their eyes could widen, the shot echoed in the cave, leaving Kain’s ears ringing.

Ed—Kain still couldn’t believe that Ed didn’t scream.  Groan, yes, through his teeth, eyes closed, bowing his head as much as he could with the fist in his hair, but he didn’t scream.

“We are serious,” the questioner hissed, as another man lifted a knife to Ed’s neck, pressing it against the bloody skin there.  “Give us what we want, or even your mothers won’t be able to recognize you when we’re finished.”

“I don’t—“ Ed gasped, choking out something that sounded like breathless laughter.  “I don’t have a fuckin’ mother, you piece of _shit._ ”

The torturer lifted his knife, shoving it into Ed’s mouth, hooking it at the corner.  Ed choked and gagged at what must have been an awful taste, but he didn’t beg, didn’t even dignify them with a noise of fear.

Kain met Ed’s eyes again, golden and bright and fierce.  He took a deep breath.

“K-kain Fuery.  Ch-chief Warrant Officer.  AT-1639-2795.”

The hand gripping the knife tightened, shaking slightly, and then flashed downward with a vicious yank.

—

Kain couldn’t recognize Ed, not at this point.

He had lost track of everything that had been done to them—things were broken, plenty of things, and he was pretty sure that a bullet was still lodged somewhere inside of him.

He was so tired, though, and he was pretty sure that Ed felt the same. Not that he could tell, not with the way his eyes blurred on anything too far from him, a combination of his bad vision, swollen eye, and exhaustion.

“Do you have any idea what they’re doing?” he slurred to Ed one evening. The pain had become almost something of a comforting friend, a constancy in a sea of misery, something into which he could sink to escape from their endless questions.

"I don't." Ed takes a deep breath. "Not... not fully, but it ain't good."

The slang sent a jolt of unexpected agony through Kain's chest. It was a colloquialism that Ed shares with Jean sometimes, and to hear their words form in that Eastern Amestrian way—he had managed to keep it together so far, but god, _god_ he missed Jean. He could only hope that he and Mustang were looking for them.

"What do you mean?" he asked tiredly. "It's obviously not good, Ed."

Ed scoffed, but Kain could tell that there was an attempt at humor in it. "Yeah, yeah, shut up, Warrant Officer."

Kain would have smiled if his lips hadn't hurt too badly. A Colonel Ed might be, but the difference in rank between the nineteen-year-old and the rest of Mustang's team had always been treated with humor.

"Anyway, it's got somethin' to do with alchemy." Ed had to stop to clear his throat, though when he continued, it hadn't helped much at all. "That much I know."

"How?"

"I mean, they focused on my hair and eyes. You... it was in Cretan, when they first grabbed us, but it's gold. That shit's... it's alchemically significant or something." Ed exhaled, and Kain could tell that he was trying to draw up enough energy for an explanation of some kind, so he interrupted hurriedly.

"So all I really need to know is that the attention they gave your... hair, and eyes, means that alchemy might be involved?"

"Yeah, that and... I saw some signs, on our way in, and you can kinda... the transmutation marks." Ed's voice wandered a bit, and Kain couldn't really blame him; he was barely holding onto the conversation himself, and even then, only onto parts. "Just... whatever they did with those people, it ain't good. I... don't think it's chimeras?" Ed hummed thoughtfully, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Kain realized that they were both taking this far too lightly. But they had to. It was that or break. "There's some kinda... smell, that they ain't got, but then again, if it were far..."

They sat in silence for a few moments, and Kain realized that he was drifting. They didn't even have any useful information, not really, other than they were trapped in some kind of cave formation. But even then, they had seen only a small part of it. It could be a small compound, but it could also travel for miles.

Miles... miles, and miles, like the distance they were from Central. From home.

"Ed?"

"Nn?"

"Do you... think they'll come for us?" Kain hated the way his voice sounded, the hesitation, but he had already been to hell and back, and a dark, insidious insistence was beginning to worm through his mind. He had come this far, survived physical, literal hell on the Aerugan front, only to die on the Cretan border.

"Yeah," Ed rasped, and Kain had to wonder if he truly believed it, or if he was just saying so for Kain's—for both their sakes. "Yeah. They'll find us."

—

Ed awoke to annoyed arguments in Cretan.

He had been dreaming in it, lately, insidious nightmares without much substance, just ominous voices threatening vague, awful things. Ed, for his part, was pretty sure that they couldn't do anything to him that was worse than what he'd already gone through, but it sucked either way. Not as badly as the hunger, but fuck, it was awful.

They opened their cell door and hauled him and Fuery up. They didn't even have to try very hard; Fuery was short, even shorter than Ed, and Ed was now missing a limb. They also hadn't been fed nearly as much food as they needed, Ed especially. So of course they didn't have it in them to fight when they were picked up by the backs of their shirts and dragged into yet another room.

This one, however, was different.

He tried to brace himself—but his knee still wouldn't take any weight whatsoever. Still, he managed to catch a glimpse of Fuery, whose eyes were wide. Even _he_ had realized that something was up, with his shitty vision and expertise that was firmly on the non-alchemic side of things. Not that Ed could blame him—after everything that Roy's team and, hell, even Amestris in general had been through, Fuery was smart enough to figure that when you walked into a room with transmutations covering every inch of the floor and walls, shit was about to go down.

And as they dragged them closer to one, he realized, stomach plummeting, that Fuery's instincts were good.

He recognized that circle. It wasn't an exact match, but there were enough similarities to know that they were in some hot fucking water. And for Ed to figure out exactly where those people had all gone.

"Fuck," he breathed, staring at the very obvious adaption of a human transmutation circle.

" _The younger one!_ " one of the men snapped in Cretan. " _He's likely less use to us, anyway—he's less likely to talk. The other one, we might break him._ "

" _He's missing a leg!_ " another growled. " _He's imperfect! We can't be expected to use_ _—_ "

" _Imperfect? Look at his hair! He's as perfect as we will get for a chance to summon the power we need!_ "

Oh, fuck everything, Ed thought as he groaned.

They squabbled for a few more moments, and Ed tried to force his mouth to say… something. Anything. But it hurt like hell, with the massive gouge slashed down his cheek, to make his mouth move at all, and bracing himself for it took far too long. Just as Ed managed to catch his breath enough to deliver some sort of witty comeback that would get them arguing for even longer (he told himself, anyway), the person holding him tossed him forward, sending him sprawling right in the middle of the etched circle.

Ed scrambled to sit up, roll away, but sharp pains in his side left him panting and coughing as he involuntarily curled into a half-ball. He had to go—he had to get _out_ of this—but all he could do was stare, frozen, at the blood pooling on the floor next to his mouth as he coughed it up from his torn lungs.

The sound of hands slapping on the ground, a crackling blue... Ed couldn't move, and though he wasn't sure if it was the alchemy or his body simply... refusing to move anymore.

And then everything went white.

—

The white resolved into a slight amount of dark fuzz, silhouetting a human form, a wide grin across its face.

“We meet again, alchemist.”

The universe, Ed thought viciously, had _got_ to be fucking kidding him.

—

When the circle flashed, when the blue light faded, when Ed _disappeared_ , Kain screamed.

It took nothing more than a punch to the face to quiet him, leave him gasping in pain, but his mind wouldn’t stop racing in fear—Ed, god, Ed, was he—he couldn’t be—

“You idiots!”

The woman who stormed through the door—now _she_ was Amestrian, blonde and furious and terrifying. “You _killed_ him? He was our best chance at finding out what they know, and now he’s _dead!_ ”

Ed was dead. Kain’s ears rang as he stared blankly ahead in horror. _Dead._ He was—he wasn’t even twenty, and he was gone, eaten away by the vicious carvings on the floor in front of him. Jean was—he had just lost a little brother, and _Mustang_ —

What was he going to tell Mustang?

“He was younger!” one of them responded defensively, his Amestrian clumsy. “We kept the older for more questioning—“

“He was a Colonel!” the woman snapped fiercely. “He’s more useful to us than _him!_ ”

She emphasized her word with a sharp kick to Kain’s ribs, and Kain curled in on himself with a soft yelp.

“Fine. Get what you can from him, then send him off to the Gate as well. We’re getting close. We must be.”

—

“I’m not an alchemist anymore,” Ed snapped, more than a little bitterness in his voice. “You saw to that.”

Truth tilted its head, a grin across his face. “You seemed fine with it, before.”

“Yeah, well, we all make mistakes.” He had—that’s what he had said, wasn’t it? It had seemed fine at the time. But having something so—so integral to your being, something so tied into who you were, something that gave you _joy_ like that, joy at being able to create, to help, to save, ripped from you?

Yeah, that kinda sucked.

“Then how did you end up here? You shouldn’t be able to, not anymore.” Truth paused. “And you look _terrible._ ”

Ed was standing. How was he standing? It wasn’t like he had any fucking functional legs anymore, not really. He should probably look down, but for some reason, he couldn’t convince his neck that it was important.

“Hey, _I_ didn’t transmute jack shit, you got it?” He pointed to Truth. He might look terrible, but he felt fine—invigorated, he guessed, by the chance to tell this asshole off again.   He pointed at the asshole. “So don’t get any fucking ideas. I’m keeping _all_ my body parts, thanks. Now send me back.”

The— _thing_ , the fucking thing, stared at him. He could feel it, even though it had no eyes, and it creeped him out.

And then it straightened slightly.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the sudden increase in sacrifices coming through, would it?”

Sacrifices. Fucking _sacrifices._ Of course that’s all it— “Those were _people_ , you asshole! People who were forced into a fucking transmutation circle and, what, you just _killed_ them?”

“There is a _toll_ , Edward Elric, and they had to pay it.”’

“I’m not paying a fucking toll,” Ed snapped. “Now send me back, or I’ll stuff the gate right up your—“

“How were you sent here?” it interrupted, not seeming to care about Ed’s language. “Show me. The circle.”

Ed wasn’t really sure how he managed it, with his fingernails torn off, but he drew the circle automatically from memory, and it was only until after he finished that he realized that it looked like it was drawn in blood.

After remaining silent for a few moments more, Truth spoke.

“They must be stopped.”

Ed let out a bark of laughter. “Hey, look, you said it yourself. I’m in no fucking shape to do _anything._ Find someone else.”

It’s silent for a few moments longer. “I could give it back.”

Ed froze.

He had thought getting punched in the gut was bad? This—this was thousands of times worse. To be teased—because it couldn’t be fucking serious, could it? No way—equivalent exchange, always. He had to give up _something._

“Nice try,” he snapped. “Why the fuck do you care so much, anyway?”

It let out a strangely human scoffing noise—had Ed rubbed off on it? That definitely sounded like an Ed noise—before answering. “However it is they’ve learned this, this is knowledge that should have been lost with Father. Allow them to continue, and they may stumble upon something that you _can’t_ fix.”

Fucking hell, hadn’t he already saved the world enough? Roy was going to owe him some _seriously_ kinky sex for this. Like “use all those weeks of stored leave and spend all the time in bed with me” owed sex.

“Fine. And what is it that you want in return? Equivalent exchange and all that.” Though Ed kept his voice annoyed and put-upon, he was trembling with anticipation.

“I told you. You must stop them.” Its voice took on an edge. “At _any_ cost.”

“You think I can’t do that if I get my alchemy back?” Ed stepped forward. “And that’s it? That’s really it?”

“That’s it.”

Hope bloomed, hope that spread through his chest and curled around his body and left him with little fluttering butterflies throughout everything. It was back. He was going to get it back.

“Fucking do it.” He stepped forward again, decisively, holding out his hand.

Truth reached out and clasped his wrist, and this time, everything went black.

—

_Kain Fuery. Chief Warrant Officer. AT-1639-2795._

They were going to be his last words. His last ever words, he thought dully, as they dragged him to the circle, the grooved stone bumping against his cheek. What a way to go.

But right after the sound of skin slapping against stone, it grew warm under his cheek.

He was so tired, too tired to move, he had thought, but something formed in front of him, a blue light…

His eyes widened as gold hair took form.

“ _Ed?_ ” he croaked, wondering if a side effect of being sacrificed was seeing ghosts.

Ed, and it _was_ Ed, Kain knew, didn’t turn, simply stepped out of the circle as if nothing was wrong.

He shouldn’t be walking, Kain knew that. But when he squinted, through his terrible vision, he couldn’t see what it was, if his automail had somehow reappeared, or—what if he had the leg back? Kain had seen weirder things with alchemy, honestly.

Blue lightning crackled, and it was coming from _Ed._

Kain had _been_ there, when he had come back, when his alchemy had been lost to… wherever it had been that he had vanished to. He had been there for discussions on the loss, had seen the effect it had had, the way that Ed’s eyes seemed to look off into the distance sometimes.

But here he was, crackling with power, and though Kain couldn’t see detailed shapes, he didn’t need to to be able to see the intensity of it. He struggled to sit up, gasping for breath, and he ignored the pain in his sides as he did so.

“ _You will release him, and you will do it now._ ”

Kain jumped, as much as he could. Ed wasn’t speaking Amestrian—it was Cretan, and he barely recognized it, with the echo.

But Kain didn’t speak Cretan.

The other men and the woman were clearly all very surprised, but Kain couldn’t understand them, only their tone of voice.

One of them lifted their gun to shoot. The blue lightning arced across the floor, which split and swallowed him up, closing without a sound.

Horrified screaming wrenched through Kain’s ears, and he shrank back, eyes widening.

“Release him, now.”

It was a blank voice, Kain realized, lacking the normal vivacity and intensity of Ed’s normal tone, and though his face had split into a painful grin at seeing him back, he wasn’t… sure, what this was.

A shot rang out, followed by a scream. Rocks cracked and fell from the cave’s roof, burying the offender alive. When the woman tried to lunge in with a sword, the ground below her shifted, spiking, then impaled her.

“Ed!” Kain called out—this _couldn’t_ be normal.

But Ed didn’t seem to hear.

Kain… as Ed continued, he became slowly more grateful that his vision was blurry. The screams, crunches, _tearing_ noises—he didn’t want to see that. Didn’t want to know what was happening. Couldn’t Ed just—trap them? Put them in a box, keep them away, go for help and arrest them?

“ _Ed!_ ” He tried again, reaching out to try to drag himself forward, but he couldn’t move, falling over with a little gasp. Everything— _everything_ hurt.

But he had to. He had to get them out of here.

Two chunks of the cave, one on top and the other on the bottom, shot down and up respectively and met in the middle, crushing the man who had been scrambling across the ground looking for a gun.

He finally, _finally_ made it to his feet, staggering towards Ed, trying to stop it, stop this—

And then Ed froze.

When Kain squinted, he could see Ed look around, dazed, then stagger.

“It’s done,” he whispered, in that same hollow voice.

The blue lightning flickered, then vanished, sinking down into the ground, and the entire cave suddenly rumbled.

Oh. Oh, no.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Ed’s eyes closed, and he crumpled to the ground.

Kain wasn’t sure how he managed to drag him out of the collapsing cavern, towards the mouth, and finally out into the open air, but he did, slowly. It might have been the adrenaline as pebbles rained down on them, or it might have been that Ed was lighter—was the automail still gone?

Either way, or whatever miracle had caused it, Kain staggered towards the closest patch of grass and dropped Ed, then sank to his knees himself.

 _Everything_ hurt. And though the mouth of the cave was still making loud, alarming noises behind them, the grass just looked so _soft._ Maybe if he slept for a while…

He didn’t even remember hitting the ground.


	2. Caldera

Kain awoke to voices, somewhere in the distance.

They were shouting, maybe, he thought, but it wasn’t something he really… processed, not really, other than they were there and distracting and he couldn’t focus, but he couldn’t go back to sleep, either…

He drifted in and out, following the sounds and patterns of the voices, if not the words.  They raised and lowered, and he realized gradually that they were getting louder.

“Kain!”

That… _that_ voice sounded familiar.  Kain made a small, pathetic noise, cracking his one good eye open.

“I see him!   _Kain!_ ”

Gentle hands touched his shoulders, rolling him to the side.  He whimpered at the stabbing pain in his side, tried to curl in, stop it all from hurting—

“Hey, no, it’s okay.  I got you.”

Kain’s eye finally settled into focus, and the first thing he saw…

Though his vision without his glasses was abysmal, the face was close enough for him to see the angular jaw, the dusty blond hair, the worried blue eyes…

And he’d never forget that cigarette smell, clinging to that jacket.

“Jean,” he barely managed to rasp out, lips trembling as they curved into a slight smile.

“Yeah, it’s me.  How are you feelin’?”

Kain wanted to say so many things, how he was so glad to see Jean, how he had missed him, had wondered if he’d ever see him again.  How he would take Jean’s hand if he could move his own, bring it to his lips the way Jean always did…

“Said you were gonna stop,” is what made it out of Kain’s mouth, grumbled softly.

Jean’s lips cracked into a smile, albeit strained, at that.  “Yeah.  Sorry about that, kid.  Had a bit of a relapse while you were gone.  I’m useless without you, obviously.”

More voices joined Jean’s, and Kain whimpered slightly as he was lifted onto a stretcher, closing his eyes.  But despite his earlier scolding, as he was carried to safety, the faintly smoky smell following alongside him was nothing but a comfort.

—

The clinical smell burned into Ed’s nose, the first thing he noticed when he started to find his way back to consciousness.  Antiseptic, alcohol, medical sterile shit… it sent him back to his automail surgery, and that was about when the pain set in.

_Fuck._

He groaned and arched his back.  God, he’d better not have lost another limb, he thought foggily; it was going straight on Mustang’s tab if he had.

Wait.  Fuck.  That would be his tab, too.

Also, _fuck_.  That arching thing hurt.  He should not do that.

“Ed!”

He recognized that voice, could hear the footsteps getting closer to his bed, and let out a huff.  Of pain.

“Are you awake?  Can you hear me?  Don’t move—the doctors said they don’t want you reopening anything, and some of the bones shouldn’t be jostled.”

Roy’s voice was fucking _amazing_ to hear, it always was, and right now he wasn’t even trying to sound good.  But of course he did.  Ed stilled, hurting too much to even care that Roy might think he was actually listening.

A hand touched his forehead to brush his bangs to the side.  Thank fuck that they were the one part of him that didn’t seem to be injured.  “Are you in pain?” Roy murmured,

Of fucking _course_ he was—god dammit; shouldn’t that be obvious?  And one pain, even more agonizing and debilitating than the rest, forced its way to the forefront of his mind.  It was going to kill him.  It _must_ be fixed.

It hurt so much that he forced his eyes and mouth open, glaring from the moment he could see again.

“I’m fuckin’ _starving_ ,” he rasped, wincing at the pull of the skin on his cut.

Roy blinked down at him, startlement clear, and then Ed could _see_ the tension drain from him, see the relief fill his eyes, the affection in the way his mouth curved upwards.

Ugh.  Sap.

Roy’s fingers continued to card gently through Ed’s hair, eyes soft.  Ed just sighed and allowed it, having used up all of his energy with his demand that had _better_ be obeyed soon, or…

“I’ll call the nurse and let him know you need food.”

“Make it good stuff—not standard hospital shit; pay ‘em off if you gotta,” Ed growled, eyes drifting shut again.  It hurt too much to talk, what with the number that asshole did with that knife.

“Only the best for you.”

Roy’s fond voice was warm, rich, and dark, sending soft tingles through Ed’s partially awake state of mind.  If it had been edible, it would have done wonders for sating Ed’s hunger.

Shit, when was the last time he had eaten?  His stomach said a long fucking time ago, and Ed tried to remember…

Slop.  Slop not fit for anything but keeping the both of them barely alive.  Sometimes thrown onto the ground, having to be licked up if they were to eat at all.

And—pain, firsts and whips and chains, fire and—oh, god, _Fuery._  His eyes flew open in an attempt to banish the images from behind his eyelids, and his arms fumbled to brace themselves on the bed, almost of their own volition, as he shoved himself up.

This was a mistake.  His aches turned into agony, bones laid back into place shrieking protest as they were wrenched roughly, the nailbed on his flesh hand burning at the pressure.  With a gasp, Ed felt his elbows buckle, and he instinctively curled up, despite the pain—he needed to stay safe, he needed to—

The crash shattered through his senses in an explosion of sound, and he opened his mouth to scream.  But the hoarseness in his throat cracked it, kept some of it in, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t—

“Ed, can you hear me?   _Ed!_ ”

Ed slapped his hands to his mouth, despite the screaming pain in his shoulder and on his face as he did so.  He couldn’t deal with the nightmarish noise coming out of it, the sound of agony and desperation—

Warm hands reached out to gently rest on his head, still the only part of his body that wasn’t mangled.  “Edward.  Love.  Please come back.”

“Should I sedate him?  I can—“

“No!  I need you to leave, now.”  The voice took on a sharp note, and Ed flinched.  When it spoke again, it was gentle.

“You’re safe.  I’m here.”

And those hands _were_ safe.  Familiar.  Comforting.

_Roy._

Ed inhaled slowly through his nose, shaking slightly, and then forced his eyes open.  Roy wasn’t the only one there: Nura and Brannon, Ed’s officers, watched with alarm next to a ruined tray of food splattered across the floor, and Ed couldn’t meet their eyes.

But Roy moved between them, obscuring Ed’s shame from their vision, and as his gentle arms wrapped around Ed’s head, Ed buried his face in Roy’s chest.  He didn’t care that it hurt like fuck, didn’t care that he was probably going to get blood or something on Roy’s uniform.  Right now, he just wanted to be held after fuck knew how long of thinking that he might not ever be again.

But there _were_ more important things than that, and Ed reluctantly tugged away, wincing at the stabs of pain as he did so.

“Fuery?” he gasped out.

“Safe,” Roy replied immediately.  “In fact, it was you that we were worried about.  He’s been in and out since we rescued him.  You’ve been out for three days.”

Well, fuck.

Roy took a deep breath.  “He’s resting, too, but… we’re still not clear on what happened, Ed.  He’s told us what he saw, but…”

“You need to know.”

Roy met Ed’s eyes steadily.  “Yes.  If you’re able.”

Ed thought about refusing, about not wanting it to _ever_ come to light, but it was barely a wisp of an idea with how _desperately_ his confession wanted to make itself known.  The words seemed to tumble out automatically, pushed from his lips by some unknown force, as if Ed was simply standing by and letting someone else talk about—everything.

When his voice finally stopped, the silence now ringing more audibly than the noise, he could feel three pairs of eyes on him.

“So… they’re all dead,” Roy said quietly.  It wasn’t a question.

Ed swallowed, then nodded.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Brannon look away.

He licked his lips, wincing at the taste of copper at the corner of his mouth.  “Yeah.  All… all of them.  It… it told me.  It’s over.”

Ed had snarled enough to Roy about Truth that Roy, understandably, looked skeptical, though he did try to politely hide it, presumably out of respect for Ed.  For himself, Ed didn’t know _how_ he knew, only that he did.

Roy glanced at Nura and Brannon.  “You two are not to repeat this, understood?”

They nodded, and with a flick of Roy’s head, they dismissed themselves.

Ed turned his head back to face the wall.  It was white.  Blank.  Impersonal.  His mind latched onto it; after he had bared everything, exposing his atrocities to one of the people he respected the most in the world, his panic was gone, leeched out of him along with everything else.  A numbness had settled over his chest, and he welcomed it, as much as he could.  It was better than…

“It’s back, then?”

Ed jerked his eyes from their spot on the wall.  He could hear Roy’s restrained excitement, but couldn’t bring himself to react to it.

“Your alchemy, I mean.  I know how much it means to you.”  Roy knelt next to the remains of the food.  A quick clap, and the entire thing was restored, a tray with a bowl of a delicious-looking orange soup, the smell wafting over that would have been delicious, if Ed had cared.

Ed thought through flashes of blue light, of screams and tearing and a body moving of its own volition, its spirit following mindlessly and willingly.  Of the ground, swallowing grown men whole.  Of the cold touch of a hand, a shake, a pact with—not a devil, but something that always required an exchange.  He thought of using his alchemy again, and his stomach twisted viciously.

“Yeah,” he said hollowly, turning to look at the wall again.  “It’s back.”

—

There still wasn’t a single movement Kain could make without it twinging _something_ , but when forced to choose between a slightly less painful existence and petting Jean’s hair, he would take the second option, every time. And he _did_ have one good hand, one that hadn’t been smashed to hell. One that still had fingernails.

Jean had presumably fallen asleep waiting for Kain to wake up. It was a rare enough occasion these days; Kain was pretty sure that he hadn’t slept this much since infancy. But Jean had made a valiant attempt regardless, he was sure, to brave the late hours. A failed attempt, but really, waking up to Jean’s head pillowed on the bed next to Kain’s thigh was a pretty good way for the universe to apologize for Everything he had gone through in the past week.

The softness of Jean’s hair always surprised Kain. It didn’t look like it should be, but despite the fact that it seemed to go every which way sometimes, running his fingers through it was always so _nice._

When he had finished to his satisfaction, Kain slid his hand gently down the side of Jean’s face, cupping his cheek, then his jaw, smiling softly at the roughness of the stubble there.

“You haven’t shaved?” he chided fondly, quietly. “For how long, Captain Havoc?”

“Too damn long,” came the grumbled reply, and if Kain’s head hadn’t been so fuzzy with painkillers—they took the edge off the worst, at least—he might have jumped. Instead, he mock-glared down at Jean. “That’s clear enough! How are you going to kiss me desperately upon my triumphant return?”

At _that_ , Jean cracked open an eye and smirked slightly. “Who says I haven’t already?”

Kain made a distressed noise. “Attacked! While I was helpless!” He turned his head away—and promptly whimpered as his body oh-so-kindly reminded him that he should _not_ be moving.

“Ow,” he whined.

Jean placed his hand gently over Kain’s, then slowly sat up. “Don’t strain yourself, okay? Doctors say you’re gonna be fine. Just gotta go through the whole ‘getting better’ thing.”

“Right.” Kain settled back, suddenly tired again. Jean was here, Kain and Ed were alive, and they were finally safe.

As Jean leaned forward to press a scratchy kiss to Kain’s forehead, Kain let out a soft, contented sigh, reaching up to twine their fingers together.

—

When the automail slid into Ed’s port, it barely hurt in comparison to everything else. He had turned down the painkillers after the first dose had left his mind far too susceptible to unpleasant thoughts and memories, and although he hadn’t been able to really _feel_ the pain of reopening the mouth cut, he figured that anything that caused him to panic enough to reopen it in the first place probably shouldn’t be repeated.

Winry genuinely seemed to be concerned, that he barely reacted to the pain, but Roy must have given her some kind of talk about what had happened, because she didn’t push, only told him that she’d be in town for a few days before stepping out of the room.

She and Al had been almost unbearably kind about the entire thing. Winry hadn’t yelled at him for losing the automail, and though Al had only been able to call—he was on his way, but had been held up due to some train disaster in the ass end of nowhere—he had kept his voice kind and gentle, even when he had promised unspeakable things if Ed didn’t rest properly.

Ed hadn’t laughed.

Roy sat next to the bed after she was gone. Ed turned to look out the window. He had one good leg now, but what the fuck good did it do him? His knee was too badly mangled that they didn’t even want him on crutches yet.

“Edward.”

He didn’t reply. Roy would talk anyway.

“I know what you must be going through.”

Ed wanted to scoff, but he couldn’t. Roy was right, after all; was one of the few who _did_ understand. Ed had coaxed him through too many nightmares, too many days where Roy wouldn’t have gotten out of bed otherwise, not to know that. And now Roy was going to tell him to get over it, suck it up, and stop—

“It’s all right.”

 _That_ caught Ed’s attention, drew his eyes back to Roy.  “What?”

Roy reached out again, fingers tracing lightly down Ed’s uninjured cheek.  “It’s all right, to feel this way. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Though Roy’s touch was gentle, his voice wasn’t: it was the voice of a commander, a general giving his men brisk encouragement. Something unknotted in Ed’s chest. If there had been pity in that voice, any sort of indication that he thought Ed needed to be coddled, protected, then Ed would have—well, he’s not sure if he would have screamed at him or cried.

But determination? Insistence? Intensity? Ed could deal with that.

Ed looked slightly away, and the fingers dropped. “Though I think it bears reminding that you’re not the one at fault here. Given what the two of you have told us, you weren’t in control if yourself, thanks to Truth.”

Ed bristled. “But I _asked_ for it, don’t you understand that? I took it up on its offer and I didn’t _care_ what it would cost! I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, that there would be some kind of consequence, but I jumped back in without a second thought and now, knowing what I do—“

He froze on the words he was about to say, eyes wide. Were they true, or just an impulsive lie?

_Would I do it again?_

He didn’t know the answer to that question, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

“Well—well I’ve got it back now,” he finishes quietly, then stares down at his hands. He could do anything with them right now, clap them and turn his awful hospital clothes into something interesting, liven up the room with some tolerable décor. Put a fucking hole in the wall and get out of here.

But the thought of having that power coursing through him again, unsure what it would do—god, how did he know it wouldn’t make him vulnerable to possession again every time he made a goddamn circle?—made him want to be ill. And he’d never be safe, either. Just because it didn’t happen one time didn’t mean that it wouldn’t happen the next time. Or maybe the next.

And he would be expected to take it up again, too, with the military. To fight again. Maybe even to kill. All the while, not knowing if he would be lost again. And if he would come back, if he were.

Fuck.

“Lotta good it does me,” he finally finished.

“Then you’re the same as you were before.” Roy took a deep breath. “I’ve omitted that your alchemy has returned in the official reports. As far as what we’ve gleaned from Fuery,” Roy continued, tone going carefully neutral with a hint of smugness, “it seems to be an alchemical reaction of theirs that backfired.”

Ed swallowed, the nausea subsiding some. “So they don’t know…”

“It is a matter of official military record that your alchemy was lost as a result of the events of the Promised Day.”

Ed’s shoulders unknotted with a twinge of pain. “Oh.”

“It may be that, after a time, you may wish to correct that discrepancy, if it does indeed exist. But as of now, when you recover from your injuries, your duties will not change from what they have been previously.”

So… he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to be expected to go back, to return to his position as a dog of the military. Though being a State Alchemist wasn’t nearly as bad anymore…

“You can take your time, Ed,” Roy finished quietly.

 _If you ever are all right with it again._ The words, though unspoken, were understood.

“Yeah,” Ed said softly. “Yeah, okay.”


End file.
